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Barack Obama would not take a position in Joe Biden’s cabinet if the President-elect proposed it – because if he did, he fears Michelle Obama will leave him.
The 44th President made the remark during an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, two days before the publication of his memoir, A Promised Land. He was scheduled to speak to CBS again, for 60 minutes, Sunday night.
Biden, Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017, is preparing to become the 46th president in January, after beating Donald Trump at the polls.
Asked how he will help Biden, Obama replied, “He doesn’t need my advice and I will help him in any way I can. Now, I don’t plan to suddenly work on White House staff or anything like that.
Susan Rice and Michelle Flournoy are among the veterans of the Obama administration who would be considered for key positions under Biden.
When asked if he would consider a cabinet job, Obama said, “There are things I wouldn’t do because Michelle would leave me. What would she be like? What are you doing?
The Obamas have enough to occupy their time as it is, including setting up a charitable foundation and making a production deal with Netflix.
In his book, Obama considers what his meteoric rise to the US Senate and then the White House meant for his marriage to Michelle and family life with their daughters, Sasha and Malia.
“My career in politics, with its prolonged absences, had made it even more difficult” for his wife to pursue her own career as a lawyer, he writes. “More than once, Michelle had decided not to seize an opportunity that excited her but would have taken too much of the girls’ time.
“… With my election [as president] she had been forced to give up a job with real impact for a role [as first lady] which – in its original design, at least – was way too small for her gifts.
The Obama literary donations have at least paid off. A Promised Land is part of a $ 65 million deal with Penguin Random House that also covered Becoming, Michelle Obama’s memoir, published in 2018, and which has sold over 10 million copies. The former president is expected to produce a second volume.
While Trump shows no signs of willingly relinquishing power, his memoir is already the subject of speculation – and priced at $ 100 million.
Another passage from Obama’s CBS interview might have resonated with the current president, had he watched.
Obama discussed what it is like to be inevitably stripped of the luxurious attributes of the office, in this case the presidential motorcade.
“I drive,” Obama said with a laugh. “I still don’t drive, but [I’m] in the car. I’m in the car in the backseat looking at my iPad or something. And suddenly we stop and I’m like, “What’s going on? There is a red light. There is a car right next to us. Some kids eat a burrito or something in the backseat.
“Back to life.”
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